Saturday, February 28, 2009

Submission


I just sent in my submission for the Jillibean Design team. You know how much I love her products, so when I saw the call for design team members I knew I had to enter. Funny thing, I have been waiting for our order to arrive so I could use the most recent supplies and they arrived today while I was at the store. I couldn't wait to open the box and see all the yummy product! I didn't send in any layouts using the newest stuff, but I will post projects here soon using them! I am awaiting a reply from Jill as to whether I am able to post my entries yet or wait until she chooses the team.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Past few days

So it has been one busy of a week...

Brian and I have been using the Secret to our advantage in building this house. We now have official dates. The foundation will be put it on March 11th, the house is being dropped off the week of March 23rd, the house will be put up March 28th- 29th. We also found out that we are receiving the free kitchen from the person he works with. I can't wait to post those pictures!!! I am loving that we are trying to build our house as green as possible. This family is just getting rid of the kitchen to buy a new one and we are getting it for FREE!

I am currently working on projects for a design team call and for the store. Wow, I haven't had a moment to rest.

Bryce and Clara did not sleep last night. They both woke up many times.

Grateful...
Tonight I am grateful for...
beautiful kitchens being repurposed
children sleeping peacefully
parents (us) sleeping peacefully
getting a full nights rest
finishing my work that needs to get done
wonderful feedback about my soup challenge

Update on Soup Challenge. If you are participating by linking to my blog post, you must post your picture to my blog by Wednesday, the day before the class. I need time to print your picture to bring to class so you can be entered to win. You can post a link to your blog or online gallery to show your picture.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

The Campbell's Soup Challenge #1

I created a new class today... "The Soup Challenge"
The first class will take place on Thursday, March 19th 8-9 pm.
I am offering this first class free; it will regularly be $10. At the end, all participants will vote for one layout/card as the winner and he/she will be given a package of journaling sprouts.
You can begin working on a layout or card to bring with you. You may enter as many times as you wish.

The Soup Challenge Cards #1

~ Green
~ Circles
~ Stamps
~ 2 different pattern papers

Challenge- I give you the recipe to your card/ layout, an hour, and a winner will be chosen at the end. Use the above ingredients to create your card, 1 page or 2 page layout.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Drew and Gabe's 3rd birthday

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Clara and Emma played together a lot tonight!
Go Drew!
Bryce was so excited to pass out the gifts to Drew and Gabe.
The night ended with blowers, tickling and a lot of laughs. We had a great time! On an exciting note, Bryce talked up a storm while at the party. He barely says 2 full sentences while we are there. Go Bryce!

Makenna, Bryce and Clara

On Friday night, we had Makenna stay and play with us while Jeremy went with Brian to get a vehicle. They played in every part of the house. It was really cute. Clara and Makenna had a lot of trouble sharing; however, it was really cute because Bryce was trying to be a mediator and help them solve their problems. Makenna was so affectionate all night. She came up at a random moment and hugged my leg and said, "I just love you so much, Aunt Jenn!" It was so cute and melted my heart. Later, while we were in the basement, I was taking pictures (I know you are surprised!). Makenna says, "Bryce, take a picture of us (Makenna and I)." Well, I wasn't handing over my good camera to Bryce; however, I was able to take a picture of us. Then Bryce wanted a picture too... enjoy.

Clearing the property

Clearing out the Property

It has been a few months since Brian has worked on the property due to weather. He spent this morning and afternoon there clearing out many of the trees that were taken down due to possibly falling on our house. One of our favorite trees, a twin, needs to be taken down, but we are going to have it carved by an artist into a Mother bear and her cub and have it as a sculpture on the property. It will be one way that we get to keep the beauty of the tree without the possibility of it hitting the house. The foundation will be in by March 11th. That is only 18 days away. Wow, it has been awhile since I have been excited about this project. Check out some of the pictures from today.
We should have enough trees for all of our flooring on both the 1st floor and the loft and masterbedroom, as well as enough for the tongue and groove for the ceiling. Beautiful red oak, too!

Life is what you make it...

Life is totally what you make it. Everyday is affected by your thoughts and attitude. I have been living my life using "The Secret" since September, but funny thing is, my husband and I have been using it for years without even knowing it. We are only 30 years old and building our dream house. I have numerous projects in the works that I will post when they happen.

We decided to give this book to each member of our family for Christmas. My sister-in-law has loved and taken to the philosophy as much as we have since she received it. It is funny, everytime she sends out an email listing things-goals, etc... they are all things that I love to do. I am definitely a planner, so I have my life planned out years in advance. I have done this since I was a kid. For instance, my plan was to have my Master's Degree before we had kids. Currently, I almost have the equivelent of 2 1/2 Master's Degrees with all the classes I have taken. Funny thing is, I have only been teaching for 9 years. We planned out when we were having our children. Our lives have been falling into place as we have planned.

So here are the answers to the email that Amy sent out recently...
Goals for this year...
Be published at least 3 times
Be on 2 design teams before the end of the year
Create a challenge blog
Build my Campbell's Creations Etsy Store and kits sold at LSS.
By July, be moving into our cabin.
By the end of the year, have my scrapbook room built.
Before the new school year, buy my Jeep Commander.
By next spring, Brian will have finished building my Jeep Wrangler.
By the end of the school year, Clara will be fully potty trained. (She is currently 2 1/2)
Spend next Easter at Disney World.
Take lots of photography classes to learn lots more
Have a successful stand at Valley Forge Convention

Goals for 5 years from now...
Buy our 2 vacation homes (1 in key west and 1 log cabin on a lake up north)
Keep a boat at each of the vacation homes
Buy and rent out rental units
Be in the Scrapbooking field fulltime
Teach 1/2 day, just because I love my career!
Spend weeks at our vacation homes.
Cruise to Alaska
Cruise to Mexico
Be a retailer and be at CHA
Teach scrapbooking around the world
Be an advanced photographer

Goals by the time I am 40...
Have plenty of money invested for retirement and college funds.
Have our house we are building this March paid off
Foster parent

Please share your dreams, but most importantly know them for yourself and create your future to be what you want it to be.

Buffy

Buffy, I am so happy that you were able to start you own blog. You are going to love it. I added your blog to my bloglist so that I can follow it and see all your wonderful projects! Happy Stamping!

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Girly Girl

Clara loves to be a Girly-Girl. Last night right before bed, Clara asked for 2 french braids. She loves to have her hair done, well at least when she asks for it. Don't mind the laundry in the background... but here is a picture of how cute she looked last night.

I am really enjoying my afterschool workshops. The girls in each of the workshops are wonderful, polite, young ladies. We are having a lot of fun. We still have 4 more weeks of the workshop.

I am grateful for a great class tonight, lots of kits selling (did I mention I have a great sale going... the cheapest the kits will ever go- $10 per kit), being able to create new kits with the fun, new, yummy products, the weekend coming up so that I can catch up on some sleep.

I am grateful for the Jillibean order being delivered tomorrow.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

100th day

I just love the 100th day of school. I serve my kids breakfast which creates a 100. They had a sausage link for the 1 and 2 types of donuts for the 0's. They were so surprised today when they arrived and had food waiting for them. We read Miss Bindergarten gets Ready for the 100th Day of Kindergarten and wrote what we would love to have 100 of. I want 100 hours of uninterupted inspired scrapbook time. How wonderful that would be! We ended our day with a scavenger hunt for 100 items that I had hidden around our classroom.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The true test...

Bryce found a box of his "old toys" in the garage today. He cleaned out some of his "baby toys" to make room for some of his "old toys." In the box were numerous tools. So when Brian got home he goes, he may know all his letters and all his sounds, but does he know the "true test"... all the names of the tools. Brian then sat there for a half hour testing Bryce on the names of tools including claw hammer, rachet, pipe wrench, Phillips screw driver, etc. He knows most of them! It made me curious to how many sounds he knows today... so I asked all the sounds and he only confused "l, n, and q." When asked numerous times later, he knew them every time... yeah for him! Reading... here we come!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Happy Birthday Gavin

Today is Gavin's 9th birthday! Here are pictures of his party from Saturday...



Today is also the twins, Gabe and Drew's 3rd birthday... happy birthday boys... we are looking forward to your party this weekend.

Valentine's Day at my mom's house

Happy Valentine's Day- After we gave the kids our gifts (mostly books, since they ate their one box of candy the other night on our road trip to buy the doors), we headed to Hazleton to see Nana and Pap Pap. They gave us their big screen tv for our new house. They bought a beautiful flat screen (our dream some day) While they were loading the tv, it was my job to keep the 3 kids busy, so what better time for a photo shoot... here are the pictures that I got.

They taught Jonathan how to make a silly face (he was really unsure what to do since he is used to smiling for all pictures... sorry Aunt Cathie, I hope they didn't start something)



One of my favorite pictures of the day... Jonathan and Clara
Here is the tale of the "traveling sweater"...
When I was a little girl, Clara's age, my mom made me this red sweater. She remembers both Cathie and I wearing it... she was showing us things in a trunk today when she found the sweater, Clara tried it on and loved it... so here continues the tale of the "traveling sweater."
Too cute!
Just because they were lying there...
~Catherine loves to take fun pictures, so she found these hats and wanted a picture... I love her and her personality. I love that Clara is silly just like her!

Valentine's Day and gifts

Our Valentine's Days gifts to each other...
Here is Brian holding the album I created for him
Cover




Here are the cards we created for each other... they both had to do with "keys to our hearts"- we are too much alike...

Poem that Brian wrote me inside my card.


Brian created me an acryllic album that he painted to say "home" He wanted to add pictures and stuff, but decided not to since it is what I love to do. We both gave each other similar albums and cards this year. Too funny.

Here we are on Valentine's Day... it is our 8th valentine's day together and one of my favorites. We went out to dinner at The Marblehead. I had "Lazyman's Lobster" it is lobster that is already shelled and baked in butter... yum. Next time I want to ask to have the butter browned. It was delicious. Brian had blackened steak. We went to the Promenade Shops to see a movie, but it was too busy. So we went to Aeropostale to catch the great sales. The kids went to "Chucky Cheese-its" if you ask Bryce. They had a wonderful time with Grammy, Pop Pop, Aunt She She and Pappy. Makenna and Gavin were there too! I am grateful that I enjoy Valentine's day now and don't dread it like I used too.

Things I am Grateful for...

Today I am Grateful for...

~ doors (We bought a set of 8' double doors for the cabin for $250. We couldn't find a good steel door for that price. They are solid oak and beautiful. Here is a picture of them with the guy we bought them from and a picture of them in the garage next to the slidding glass doors that will be on the other side of the house. Look how small they look.) * We think the doors were from a church.

~ Jeans (I bought a new pair of jeans this weekend, they are the size I wore when I was 22. Whoo hoo! The Secret works for loosing weight) This is my photo of the day for Friday.


~ Kits (My last newest kit sold out in a week... I made 3 more to sell this week, but that is all I can make. I created a new layout kit to sell. I am grateful that it will be a hit as well.) I am grateful to all who bought my kit.

~ I am grateful to have had today to spend with my children. We went on an alligator hunt. We read numerous books. We took naps! (me too) We did our "scrappin stuff."

~ I am grateful to have spent an hour watching my favorite show, House, with Brian.

~ I am grateful to have eaten 2 meals with Brian today, breakfast and dinner. I love that he works right outside and can join us for breakfast even while he is working.

~I am grateful that my strep throat has gone away. I woke up Friday morning with strep, got antibiotics by lunch and felt better by the evening. I had the weekend to recoop.

~I am grateful to have a new box of "Lemonades" to snack on... thanks Beth for selling Girl Scout Cookies at the store, it makes it really easy to buy lots of them this year.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

1 step closer

Blueprints are back in our hands after being approved. Copies have been made and have begun being given to the appropriate people. We are scheduling the foundation to be put in the week of my birthday... what a great present! We are having our "non-Amish" house raising party the last weekend in March. We could use as much help as possible in building the house. Brian informed me that I will be very good at numerous new skills by the end of building this house. Basically, he is going to teach me to do all the things that he doesn't want to do. Ex. wiring the house and outlets. I am sure it will be easy to learn. I love to learn new things. In fact this is one thing that Brian and I have in common and why we are together. My first dance teacher put it best when meeting with her at the beginning of the fall... she said that the two of us are alike... we are "knowledge whores." We can't get enough knowledge, we are constantly seeking it out. We have "little use" for people who cannot "teach us something." When I told Brian the story, he said he is the same way. We are constantly seeking out new information. We are lifelong learners. Anyway, back to the house... I am very excited to learn new skills in this process... I can add construction worker to my list of things that I can do. This past summer, I added race car driver to my list. Today, I am grateful for knowledge, spring weather, building the house March 28th. I am grateful to move into the house July 1st. Brian wants the official day to be July 4th- Independence day (pun intended)

Monday, February 9, 2009

Longing for Spring

Yesterday gave me a taste of spring... I am looking forward to the bright green grass and flowers blooming... a house being built and life being rejuvenated! I am grateful for the sunshine!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

PJ day

I went to the PJ crop today. Anyone that knows me, knows that I would live in my jammies if I could... I spend most of the summer in my jammies. I wonder where Bryce gets it from... hmmm... Anyway, It was a lot of fun... even after all the teasing about "not sharing!" (wink, wink) I did not get a whole lot done like I normally do at a crop but lots of teaching was happening... it was all good!

I created a new kit to begin selling today. I made 8 and 3 were sold already today. They are on sale this week at 10% off. I made mine "10 things I love" I will post pictures tomorrow. I am exhausted and looking forward to sleeping as soon as I am done with this post.

The kids and I created Aunt Cathie's Birthday card tonight. Her birthday is Tuesday and we made cousin Gavin's card for this weekend. They had a great time... cute pictures to share of those...

(Sorry again, Aunt Shelley, no pictures of Brian- Can you tell we barely see each other right now?) I am looking forward to going out to dinner Friday night with him. We have reservations at the Marblehead which has excellent seafood.

I begin teaching my afterschool scrapbook workshops on Wednesday and Thursday... I know.. I know.. I am not busy enough, right. Well, my previous students asked me to teach it again... It is a 6 week workshop on both days right after school.

To Do list for tomorrow... begin Bryce's Valentine's cards and gifts... (can't wait to post a picture), and finish Brian's gift (I will post pictures of it too.)

Bye Bye for now...

New kit and more sledding

I just created an album kit that will go on sale tomorrow. (I only made 8) Check it out at...


I will post more pictures of it soon when I have mine totally complete.

Brian took Bryce and Clara sledding today... sorry Aunt Shelley, but no pictures of Brian since he was the one taking them and I wasn't there... Cindy and Ian were over... they had a blast, even Clara didn't want to go inside.
They are all making a silly face, funny thing, they all did the same silly face.
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